Some Interesting Bee Facts

The bees that do all the work (yes you guessed it ladies) are female! The boy bees (drones) laze around the hive eating the honey until a new queen takes to the sky in order to find a mate. Once the queen has been mated, in mid air, the drone then dies and the queen takes a small entourage of worker bees with her to find a suitable hive to build a new colony.

When a worker bee has found a new source of nectar she returns to the hive and performs a dance called a waggledance which describes to the other bees the location of the new flowers.

Worker bees have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the stemites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body)

Bees carry pollen back to the hive in sacks on their legs. Could the source of this the phrase "the bees knees meaning something good come from this?

A mated queen doesn't leave her hive unless she is forced out by a new queen. The worker bees will kill and replace a queen who is not laying sufficiently.

A honey bee will only sting if threatened and once it has stung once it dies (unlike wasps who are able to sting many times.)

Honey was found in the tomb of the Egyptian King Tutankhamen and as it doesn't degrade over time it should still be edible! Although, if it is kept at a low temperature it may start to crystalise and set but can easily be returned to liquid state by gentle heating.